


the way things change

by impossibletruths



Series: vigilance; victory; sacrifice [4]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/M, Goodbyes, Post-Canon, Unresolved Romantic Tension, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-17
Updated: 2019-02-17
Packaged: 2019-10-30 10:56:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,560
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17827277
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/impossibletruths/pseuds/impossibletruths
Summary: Goodbyes are a familiar bitterness for the Commander of the Grey.Or, the Warden leaves to cure the Calling.





	the way things change

**Author's Note:**

> title from rivers and roads. originally posted to [tumblr](https://cityandking.tumblr.com/post/172046249592/the-way-things-change).

She stops to see him before she heads west. (She stops to see all of them, or all of them she can find, but he is last because he was first and she has grown fond of these sorts of coincidences with age. That, or she has merely grown superstitious.)

He’s older, same as her, sanded down around the edges. There are new scars, and new lines upon his face. She’s distantly glad to see the suggestion of crow’s feet around his eyes. He always was one to face down hardship with a laugh.

“I was wondering when you’d stop by,” he says when she slips into the door of his office, left half-ajar. “Almost didn’t believe it when Leliana said you were making the rounds. Were you saving the best for last?”

“I had hoped to stock up on supplies in Denerim.”

“And here I thought you’d just come to see me.”

She tugs back her hood and contemplates the room in lieu of a response. The study is lovely, carpeted in thick rugs and paneled in warm wood with tall windows looking out over the city, a far cry from the narrow and dark office she fails to keep in Amaranthine. A monstrosity of a desk squats in the center of the room, buried beneath half-organized stacks of reports and letters and other paperwork. Duncan’s shield hangs above the massive fireplace, and the sight of it catches in her chest. Alistair, if he notices her drifting gaze, makes no mention of it.

She brushes the old ache away. This may be a social call, but there is business to be done as well. She fishes the papers from an inner pocket, ignoring the twinge of displeasure at handing away this death-oath responsibility. This is not abandonment, she reminds herself; it is a new path, and just as important.

“I’ve made arrangements,” she tells him, setting the papers on the desk between them. “Should anything happen––”

“I’ll light the signal fires and let you lot fix everything, yes, yes, of course.” He stands, reaching for the folded parchment, and hesitates, his worn and scarred hand hovering above the stack as though afraid to touch it. The joke falls flat, and his demeanor sobers. “You truly mean to go, then?”

“Yes.”

Once he might have sought an explanation, pushed for answers, but now he only offers a pensive look and picks up the parchment, scanning through it. She finds herself oddly at a loss for words. He had always filled the space, back when they were young and stupid and thought themselves heroic. There’s something measured to him now. The throne fits him well. The silence hangs thick between them.

“Do you think you’ll find it?” he asks finally, setting the papers down. He speaks quietly, as though wary of voicing it, as though uncertain if he wants to know the answer. She presses her lips together, thin and tight, and listens to the singing in his blood, the gentle melody of the poison that will kill him one day. Kill them both.

Unless she finds the cure.

“I see no other choice.”

“No,” he says, bracing his hands upon the desk. “I suppose not.”

She wishes suddenly, sharply, that he would say something more. That he would fill the space again, offer nonsense jokes and dry quips and  _noise_ , something to muffle the song in her mind, in her blood. She knows he hears it too; he may not wear the armor but he is a Grey Warden just as much as she.

Maker, she feels old.

“It’s good to see you again,” she says, small and thin and a little stiff among the riches of the room. The thick rug underfoot swallows her words, but it is enough. Something in his expression loosens, and he emerges from behind his barricade of a desk.

“I’m glad you came by,” he replies, clasping her arm, familiar despite everything. That catches in her chest, too. “If there’s anything I can do––”

“Would you watch Alfie?” She trips over the end of his sentence, words spilling out. He frowns, just a little, a line between his brows.

“You’re not taking him?”

“He’s old,” she says by way of explanation. “I would–– I’d spare him the road, if I can.”

Perhaps it is weakness, but she does not want to bury him. She has lost family enough.

“Alright,” he nods, and the knot in her chest loosens even as the lump in her throat grows.

“Thank you.”

“Well, I could hardly say no to such a good dog.”

“I’ll tell him you said so.”

“Do,” he grins, and for a moment the years bleed away and they might be children again, crouched around the fire. He had talked so much back then, offered up stories about the Wardens unbidden, painting pictures of something akin to family. She had sat and listened, half-unwilling, and loved those picture he had painted, and been guilty-glad too, that it was gone so that she could not have it.

There is a great deal, she thinks some days, that she tore down before it was wholly built, back then. She has made her peace with it, more or less.

It is easy to sweep old hurts aside and call the hollow they leave serenity.

“I should go,” she murmurs, and the brightness fades, and he is old again, just as she is old, and grey around the edges, and so  _damned_  tired. They have each been walking a lonely path for some time now. She has given up on feeling guilty for starting them down it.

“I–– Right.”

She turns away before she can second guess herself, chest tight.

“Lira.”

Her name stills her as sure as if he reached out and touched her. It has been, she thinks, some time since anyone used it with such familiarity.

She turns back to him, lit by the evening sun through his wide, tall windows. The golden light brushes his hair, crowns him as he raises his chin, suddenly kingly. His gaze pins her in place, and she finds she cannot breathe through the tightness of her chest.

“Do you ever think,” he asks, echoing in the hollow room, “about what would have happened if we–– y’know. You would make a good queen.”

It takes her a moment too long to find her tongue. “It was a long time ago, Alistair.”

“Yes, I know, it’s just–– Silly old me, still caught in the past.”

He was soft then, a boy, and she was bitter-sharp. He’s grown calluses since; she’s worn down her edges. Funny how time changes a person.

“Take care of yourself,” she says, instead of an answer. It is the closest to an admittance as she can manage

When he smiles it is understanding, and almost sad, and the lines around his eyes crinkle easily. It’s a good look for him, caught between age and hard-won hope. She hopes they grow deep, those lines. She hopes this succeeds.

“Shouldn’t I be the one telling  _you_  that?” he asks, too fond to be challenging, and she presses a kiss to his cheek. He smells of leather and the same soap he used all those years ago. She lingers too long, and does her best to memorize him.

“Goodbye.”

His hand comes up to her shoulder for the briefest moment, settles there as though afraid to touch her, and she sighs with her whole body and steps away. She does not look at him.

“Bring me back a souvenir from the Anderfels,” he says in that old, familiar, wry tone, and it follows her as she makes for the door without a reply. “I’ve always wanted to go.”

She nods once, a promise, and tugs her hood back up when she reaches the hall, brushing past the guards without so much as a second glance. The halls of the castle are still familiar, even after all these years. In the courtyard, Alfie sits proudly where she left him, muzzle grey with age.

“Take care of him,” she tells her oldest companion, one hand running across his head. He pants quietly. “I’ll see you when I get back.”

It is not a lie, she tells herself, if she hopes it to be true.

A lump catches in her throat as she kneels to run her hands along his sides, to kiss the top of his head. She sucks in a shuddering breath, eyes damp. It is the first time among all of this that she has thought to cry.

“I love you,” she murmurs, and he whines, shifting forwards to lick her face. She drags in another lungful of air and presses her face into his fur. “Now you stay, okay? You stay. Take care of him for me. Good boy.”

She forces herself to stand, then. Forces herself to offer him one last scratch and then turn away, forces herself to take each step out of the castle courtyard as he whines behind her. Forces herself not to look back, or up at the window where she is sure he’s still standing. She has a long journey ahead. She cannot start it looking behind.

She passes the gates, and like the sea the rushing crowd of the busy Denerim street rises around her, and she disappears among it, swallowed whole.


End file.
